Animals of October

We are decamped at a friend's house to look after her cats while she's away. This is an annual occurrence. There is a dog in this mix who is uncontrollable when it comes to firework season, so our friends take her away somewhere remote in the hope of avoiding the bangs and booms. Mostyn is one of two cats at this abode and just look at him: as regal and as glorious as they come. He's a friendly fella with a wild streak and a show-off attitude. He is quite used to Hannah and I as his occasional carers because we are a key node in a network of pals who feed each other's pets at times of holidaying. Arrangements are made, keys are exchanged, bags of treats are left on kitchen counters alongside complex instructions about medicines that need to be administered or specific foods for specific creatures. Curiously, at times, it feels like we see more of each other's animals than we do of each other.   All of this is currently allowed according to COVID rules, but will not ...

Cats with no concern for cinematography, Dogs, gangly, sprawled, a tangle of limbs and mouths, uncontainable within the frame. A hoisted guinea pig is just a brief white void with eyes. One moggy passes across the foreground of one square just before another trots along the background of another square and we might pretend, for a moment, that it is the same cat performing a merry teleportation trick in an effort to reclaim human attention. An unmuted person offers an opinion which is answered first by the yaps of their dog who believe some sort of conversation has begun. Why would it think otherwise? There's no-one else around.  OK, so many of us are quite royally sick of Zoom by now, but we can't deny that it has served us pretty well these past months. And the invasion of our animals into our little mise-en-scenes is never going to not be delightful. Perhaps such small furry moments have helped us paste over some of the cracks of our physical disconnection, and that counts fo...

Quick content warning: there's discussion of pet death in the latter half of this post. Not too heavy, but if that's a difficulty for you, maybe skip this post.  This handsome chap is Merlin. He lives at the back-opposite house to ours and spends significant amounts of his time as a sort of feline sentinel for the ginnel between our streets. He stands on the fence, or lies Sphinx-like on the flat top of the shed, and watches the comings and goings of the alleyway. He's not particularly friendly, at least not with me, but I always say hello. He glares at me as if to say; I'm on duty here, I'm a complete professional , and that's fair enough I suppose. We hear him miaow occasionally when his shift is done and he wants to head back inside. It is a loud and proud howling voice very much befitting his stature.  He's a rescue cat from the Manchester & Salford RSPCA and we know this because Hannah did his home visit. This is one of her volunteering roles (durin...

I'm really very late in posting here today because I decided to forego a stint of writing this morning in favour of a quick solo adventure to the wild and rugged moorland above Manchester. I mentioned yesterday how Hannah was off gallivanting with her best mate in the Lakes and I asked her to send me pictures of animal encounters. I soon got a flurry of messages, led by the words 'Beltie for blog' which accompanied this lovely snap of this lovely cow. It is indeed known as a Beltie, by virtue of the white stripe across its back, and it grazes upon the fens above Coniston Water in the Lake District, mostly minding its own business. Two more pictures soon followed; one showing a cheeky robin who ambushed the fair travelers demanding tasty morsels, and an idyllic and romantic snap of a single swan upon a tarn at sunset. All very nice, all very pretty, meanwhile I was sprawled out on the sofa eating jelly tots watching some very manly men beat each other up in The Raid 2. And w...